COLOMBO: Troops seized a strategic village from separatist Tamil Tiger rebels following a two-month battle, moving the government a step closer to capturing the militants’ de facto capital in northern Sri Lanka, the military said yesterday.
However, the government admitted yesterday scores of its troops had been killed or injured in fierce fighting with the Tamil Tigers, its biggest reported battlefield loss in months.
The Defense Ministry said troops had edged closer to Kilinochchi but the battles since Saturday had left 33 soldiers dead, three missing in action and 48 injured.
The ministry said the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) also suffered heavy casualties, with the bodies of 11 rebels recovered from the battlefield.
“Troops have captured approximately half a square kilometer of land area from the LTTE,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to fighting on Sunday.
Government troops yesterday made dramatic progress on the northern fronts in the past months, seizing a series of rebel bases and chunks of land, but the rebels have offered stiff resistance as government troops close in on Kilinochchi.
The battle for Vannerikulam village, about 25 kilometers west of the rebel capital, was especially difficult because the rebels had erected a 10-kilometer-long dirt mound from which they had a clear view of the surrounding territory, the military said in a statement.
Soldiers cleared the mound, the military said, but would not give more details. The statement said the capture of the village Sunday could ease the military’s advance into Kilinochchi, which has housed the rebel headquarters for the past 10 years.
Another group of soldiers advancing from a different direction are less than two kilometers of the Kilinochchi town limits, according to the military.
